The Ga came to the coast and found the sea, and the sea was already someone.
Jamestown and the fishing harbour; the Ga Mashie shoreline; the Homowo season, when the Nai Wulɔmɔ's calendar governs the city.
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Listening to Nai: the sea that keeps Accra
Nai: the sea that keeps Accra
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Nai: the sea that keeps Accra
The Ga came to the coast and found the sea, and the sea was already someone.
Nai is the god of the ocean, and the senior deity of the Ga, and his priest — the Nai Wulɔmɔ — is the senior priest of Accra. He is not a ceremonial figure. It is his office that declares the ban on drumming and noise-making before Homowo each year, the thirty days of quiet the city keeps so that the crops in the ground and the fish in the water are not disturbed. Modern Accra, a capital city of millions, still argues about this ban every year and still, largely, keeps it.
Beside Nai are the others: Sakumo, of the lagoon that guards the western approach; Korle, of the lagoon at the heart of the old city; Kple and the lesser gods of the quarters. The Ga fishermen of Jamestown go out in painted canoes into water that belongs to somebody, and they know whose it is, and they observe the days on which no one fishes.
If you visit Ghana. Jamestown and the fishing harbour; the Ga Mashie shoreline; the Homowo season, when the Nai Wulɔmɔ's calendar governs the city.
The Ga came to the coast and found the sea, and the sea was already someone.
Nai is the god of the ocean, and the senior deity of the Ga, and his priest — the Nai Wulɔmɔ — is the senior priest of Accra. He is not a ceremonial figure. It is his office that declares the ban on drumming and noise-making before Homowo each year, the thirty days of quiet the city keeps so that the crops in the ground and the fish in the water are not disturbed. Modern Accra, a capital city of millions, still argues about this ban every year and still, largely, keeps it.
Beside Nai are the others: Sakumo, of the lagoon that guards the western approach; Korle, of the lagoon at the heart of the old city; Kple and the lesser gods of the quarters. The Ga fishermen of Jamestown go out in painted canoes into water that belongs to somebody, and they know whose it is, and they observe the days on which no one fishes.